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[原创] 空庭寂寞春已晚 (bilingual)
一年前稀里糊涂地买了个宅子,房子不大,院子不小。可惜院子都没有铺。 本地又是近海之地,土质为干沙。荒草不少生,搞园艺就得买土买肥。我没那个耐心当老农,就任它去了。只有雨季来临,方见茵茵绿色。旱季则满地枯黄。我唯一做的,就是用镰刀不时地控制荒草的高度。我不拔出荒草,是因为它们有一定的固沙作用。

A year ago, I bought a house, without really knowing how to buy one. The house is not big but the land is, only that it is not paved. This city is close to the sea and the land if of a sandy composition. Although weeds are abundant, to have a garden one has to buy soil that has nutrition. I am not patient enough to do be a farmer so I just let it be. When wet season comes, the yard is luxuriant, but in dry season, yellow is the dominant color. The only thing I do is to use a sickle to control the height of weeds. I do not root them, because their roots can control the sandy soil.

荒草夏而枯,冬而绿。我在木头篱笆上书写杜甫的诗,以配合这种自然景色。

The weeds wither in summer and turn green in winter. I painted a poem about wild grass by the famous Chinese poet of Tang Dynasty on the fence to match with the changing scenes:

Th weeds on the prairie
Grow and die once a year
The wild fire kills them not
The spring wind brings resurrection
They erode ancient roads
And press on to deserted towns
Now I see you off again
My feelings as thick as the weeds


我背后的邻居,因为地势高,不建二楼,胜似二楼。窗口一站,我的后院皆在其视线射程范围内。感谢上帝他们不是黑帮!

The neighbor's house behind me is built on higher land so even this one story house looks like a two story house from my back yard, which is fully covered in their view.

中国人居住文化非常看重院子,可是我这后院虽大,无奈隐私不足。倒是房子左侧,距离篱笆还颇有些宽度。后院左后角,有工具房一个,正好挡住后边邻居的视线,使得房子左侧这一块地方,成为一处隐秘的所在。唯一不好的地方是,这里只有三尺宽的水泥走道,两侧皆是裸地,生长着荒草。

In Chinese residence culture, yard is very important. My yard, though big, lacks privacy. On the left side of my house however, there is a piece of land that separates the house with the fence by quite a few yards. This space is blocked from the view of the neighbors behind me by a shed and thus claiming some seclusion. The only bad thing about it is that it is bare land, with only a concrete path running through it between weeds.

于是我决定把这里的裸地铺起来,造成一个小偏院。以后可以在这院子里看书喝茶,乘凉赏月。

I decided to pave the bare land to create a side yard in which I can read, savor tea, and enjoy the moon in a summer night.

决定以后,就得解决材料问题。当然,猴的铺就在附近,花钱买点铺地砖是再容易不过了。但是读者都知道老方何许人也。典型的抠门,怎么舍得花钱?于是天天上魁格网,终于看到有人家破坏自家院子,打算种地,拆下来的不规则水泥块,希望大家拉走。

Mind made up, I now had to find material. Home Depot is close by and it is easy to buy bricks, but I am very stingy. I went online everyday and finally found on craigslist someone who dug up her paved yard and had free concrete blocks to be taken away.

我一般只周末开车, 所以用了两三个星期从那家人院子里拉了一些水泥块。此外,我们学校的人行道正好也在那个时候从新做过,因此也从那里拉了一些水泥块。

So I used several weekends to pick up her concrete blocks and also from my school that happened to be fixing  the walkways.

拖拖拉拉地每个周末干一点活,两三个月后终于把地铺完了。

The project dragged along for two and three months before it was finished.

完了以后,看看那里还是没有院子的味道。首先对着大街的一边没有院墙。前院只有一道有空隙的木栅栏。从街上可以一览无余地看到这个“院子”。其次,把地铺了以后,草没有了,反而显得毫无生气。第三,木头院墙并没有中国味道。

Yet, it did not look like a yard. There was no wall on the street side. The front yard has only a fence and anyone can see my "side yard". Besides, the original weeds disappeared after paving and the place looked lifeless. Finally, the side fence does not look Chinese at all.

我是要把冲着街道的一面挡起来的。暂时没有办法的时候,我挂了几块旧窗帘,好像是建起了一个战地帐篷。这几块白布就在那里飘呀飘的,很鬼气了一段时间。

I had planned to block the street side with a wall but before that, I hung several pieces of old window curtains, as if setting up a tent in the battlefield. When there was wind, the curtains, white, danced ghostly.

然后我把木板墙漆成白色。我想过很多次,这个小院要什么风格。北京皇城根的红墙绿瓦?还是大杂院的灰墙?想来想去,觉得还是白色成本最低。而且,我对江南民居的那种白墙黑瓦颇为欣赏。

Then I painted the side fence white. I had thought about what style my side yard should have. Should it be red wall with yellow tiles, like the walls of the forbidden city? Or should it be grey, like that of the courtyards of old Beijing? After thinking back and forth, I decided that white is the color that costs the least. Besides, I appreciate very much the style of southern architecture of white walls and black roof tiles.

但是我没有黑色画墙头的瓦。再说要画的像也很费时间。想了想,就着手头有的颜色,在墙上画了三个形状各异的窗户,和一个月亮门。背景是隔壁的房子。离着老远眯起眼睛,加上一点想象,就能产生一个立体的幻觉。

But I did not paint black tiles on the fence. It is time consuming to make it real. So I just used what paint I have to paint three windows of different shapes on the white-washed fence, and a moon gate. For the background of them, I painted the similar color of the house next door. If you stand away from the fence, narrow your eyes and look at the fence, with some imagination you can have a mirage of three dimensions.

后来,一个做装修的朋友给我拿来了一个铁架子,正好可以支持两扇门和一块木板。这样,冲着街道的那头便半封起来了,留一个出口。出口之外,又立了一块板做屏风。这样,我的小偏院就造成了。

Later, a friend of mine who did remodeling brought me an iron shelf, just of the size of two doors and a piece of wood board. With them I sealed off the street side of my side yard, leaving a gap for exit. At the exit, I set up another piece of board a few feet from it as a screen. This done, my side yard was complete.

http://my.cnd.org/modules/zeuploader/dir8/yardupdate2.jpg

然而这只是初见成效,还有许多后续工程。水泥块之间的缝隙,准备用水泥填缝,等等。

This however, is only the initial phase of the project. There are more jobs to come, such as using cement to seal the gaps among the concrete blocks.


这又过去两三个月了,我再也没有去动过这个院子。何也?我突然发现我失去了兴趣。

Two or three months passed since then and I never touched the yard. Why? Because I suddenly lost my interest.


我不是没有试着在院子里乘凉,但是蒙特雷的夜晚,就是到了夏天也很凉,不用乘了。晚上恨不得穿秋衣。四周黑洞洞的,一个人坐在那里,傻冒一个。

It was not that I did not try to enjoy a cool night in the yard, but in Monterey, there is no hot summer to make coolness such an enjoyable thing. I cannot wait to put on thick sweater when dusk falls. Besides, if I sit there in the darkness all by myself, I appear a fool.

虽然画了个古典式的月亮门和窗户,门里并没有佳人进出,来和我饮茶斗诗。窗户里也没有颦儿一笑,让我魂上九霄。我不是神笔马良,就是画一个美人,也只是画饼充饥。即便我有神笔,画出来的美人焉知不是一张画皮?

Although I painted a moon gate and classifi Chinese windows, there is no beauty coming in and out to drink tea with me and challenges my poems with hers. There is no smiling face of a lovely girl in the windows that makes me to lose my soul. I am not Ma Liang the magic painter and a beauty I should paint would be simply a painted cake to surpress my hunger. Finally, even though I might be a magic painter, how do I know the beauty I should paint would not be a beauty skin hiding a monster?

http://img.ifeng.com/hres/200810/07/10/47af0baefa7c5d4f9fc041386bcc82bb.jpg

倒退多少年,如果我在国内有这么一个宅子,不知道可以演出什么浪漫故事。可惜,在国内多少年,除了军队的那些年以外,我的住处都是在某个亲戚的阴影之内,最后,城市改造让我这个远在海外的人鞭长不及马腹,被亲二代像抹布一样扔进了历史的弱势群体垃圾堆。如今亲二代又当房东,又周游世界,但是上天有眼,在其第一桶金里,有我作为老家城市合法居民的一份被剥夺了的权利。这是外话,暂且按下不表。

(this paragraph won't be in the English version.)

看官也许会问,莫非不能请你的同事朋友来小院坐坐吗?倒退五十年,我想可以。那时候都是小孩子,聚到同学家做作业是很好玩的事情。我小学一个同学住在北京赶驴市。他家就有个小院,曾经是我们学习小组的活动地点。我们在那里度过过不少开心的时光。倒退四十年,我想也可以,中学高中正是风华正茂的时候,指点江山激扬文字,不知道自己天高地厚。压马路谈国事入夜方罢的时候多得很。那时候有我这样一个小院,想必利用得更频繁。可现在不行了。人老了,大家都进入财富时代。聚会对场所的要求提高了。最低层次你得有个大客厅,沙发(皮的更好),宽屏电视(因为现在聚会谈心的少,所以电视是必要的填空手段,哪怕是用来打游戏)。这些我都没有。更不要说屋内装璜得上层次了。 上不了层次,李洪志会有意见的。我到现在也没有请过同事到家里来温暖一下。因为我看来看去,我的房子都不会是久留之地。人家吃完饭一定会赶紧告辞。屋内如此,屋外就更不行了。

Readers may ask why I cannot invite my colleagues and friends to sit in my yard. It would have been possible 50 years ago. At that time, it was much fun to go to a classmate's home to do homework together. One of my primary school classmate's family had a yard, where our study group often met.We spent much fun time there.

It would also have been possible 40 years ago. I was in high school, a time when I was young and full of ideals and ambitions. With my classmates of the like mind, I often took a walk on the street discussing state affairs till midnight. If I had had a yard, it would have been utilized very frequently.

It is impossible now. Firstly, I am old. Second, it is now the times of wealth. The material request for social gathering has been raised. At least you should have a big sitting room, a sofa (better made of leather), a wide screen TV (because people nowadays do not talk a lot at social gatherings, so TV is the necessary gap filler, albeit for playing games.) I do not have such things. Moreover, the interior decoration should be high grade. Up to now I have never invited my colleagues for a house warming, because it seems to me that my house cannot hold people and visitors will leave after eating.

6 评论

照片 please...

我也在铺路,已完成70%,一定不能烂尾。

老方你随遇而安吧,逃出了围墙,还老往里面张望。不知道你现在有多自由。

thesunlover